1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computer systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a computer able to start an operating system in a xe2x80x9cfastxe2x80x9d mode from a secondary memory.
2. Description of Prior Art
Typical operating systems are initiated when a user powers on a computer device. Upon powering on, the computing device initially transmits information about the hardware characteristics of itself to an initial bootstrap sequence that enables the computing device to xe2x80x9cuse its own resources.xe2x80x9d In many personal computers, the parameters of the computer are impeded within a BIOS. Upon determination of the parameters of the computer system, typically the computer will immediately load in a machine instruction set from a preset point on a fixed memory medium. During a full boot process, the computing system initiates a set sequence of activities to build a system image that will operate the computing system.
In the full boot process in a typical computing system, the computing machine program assembles and loads the various components of the operating system, eventually building an image of the system in the primary memory. After building a system image, the computing system transfers control of the function of the computing system to the system image.
In a typical full boot process, the computing system seeks out all the various components of the eventual system image contained on the permanent or semi-permanent memory medium, such as a hard disk. As such, a number of slower media accesses are necessary, as well as the time for the processing unit to actually perform the operations on the material accessed. Thus, in the full boot process, the computing system needs quite a bit of time to seek out and load the various components to make a system image.
Once the image of the system is complete in the primary memory, the boot process transfers operational control of the computing device to the system image assembled in the primary memory. As such, in a typical full boot or initialization process, the steps of the seeking, compiling, and assembling the various components of the system image into a cohesive operational unit may take a relatively long period of time.
In many mission-critical applications, such a reinitialization or reboot of a computer is time-critical. As such, the reinitialization of a computing system after a crash or other form of stoppage is hampered by the necessity of the boot process in to finding, loading, and assembling all the different components of the operating system into a single cohesive image.
Many other problems and disadvantages of the prior art will become apparent to one skilled in the art after comparing such prior art with the present invention as described herein.
Various aspects of the invention may be found in a computing system containing a primary memory and a secondary memory. The secondary memory is either powered independently from the main computing system and primary memory, or is non-volatile memory that may be written and overwritten by the computing system itself. In exemplary embodiments, the secondary memory is powered by a battery or rechargeable power source. Or, the secondary memory may be an electrically erasable programmable memory (EEPROM).
When the computing system is initiated, the computing system is directed to save an image of the system to the secondary memory. Due to the fact that this secondary memory is unaltered when the computing system crashes or is otherwise reinitialized, the system image can be reloaded directly into the primary memory. As such, the computing system need not perform a full boot or reinitialization process to restart the computing system from scratch.
Additionally, the boot process may detect whether any such system image resides in the secondary memory. If so, the computing system during the boot process may transfer the stored system image to the primary memory and mask off the secondary memory to the operating system. If not, the computing system during the boot process may free the secondary memory for normal use by the operating system.
Other aspects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.